Lobbying for Restoration of the Wire Act Intensifies

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Lobbying For Restoration Of The Wire Act Intensifies

In their ongoing efforts to restore the Wire Act, and once again make state regulated online gambling illegal—Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla) introduced an accompanying bill to RAWA (S. 1668). The unlikely advocate, Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson is still one of the bills most passionate vocal and financial supporters.

The National Association of Convenience Store’s (NACS) has hired the lobbying firm that chiefly wrote the RAWA. Currently, convenience stores monopolize the lottery ticket market, meaning that the more states that allow lottery tickets to be sold online, the more money they stand to lose.

A Capitol Hill Source told The Hill that in an effort to show how easy it is to participate in the online gambling process, the firm has been screening a video among lawmakers that supposedly shows a person in Virginia using a private virtual network to unlawfully access Georgia’s online lottery.

What the video does not highlight is that the individual in the video is making a choice to break both state and federal laws and that the problem is not access, but (if the video is real) that Georgia is not doing a good job of regulating their online lottery.

On top of that, the 3 states that allow regulated online gambling above and beyond lottery (Delaware, New Jersey, and Nevada) have gone to great lengths to regulate access to their online casinos.

“If lawmakers truly desire to protect consumers and uphold the constitutionally protected state powers,” says article author Michelle Minton, “they should let states decide for themselves if and how to regulate the activity. As the last few years have demonstrated, the technology is available and states are motivated to play by the rules.”

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